Chapter 63 Lee
Lee
The apartment felt smaller when Lee returned from the hospital: the couch where she and the girls had cuddled together during the first nights waiting; the kitchen table where they’d scrutinized Regan’s online activity and shared meals; assorted detritus of a teenager and young adult—shoes, hoodies, unmatched socks, hair ties, water bottles, charging cords.
Lee felt as if she were standing among discarded props from a play, a show that had closed.
Flora smashed the apartment door open. “Auntie Lee! How’s Mom?”
“She’s good,” said Lee robotically. “She’ll be home soon.”
Flora set her backpack down, her face hopeful and anxious. “Really? When?”
“Tomorrow or the next day, I think.” Lee smiled brightly, trying to project hope.
“That’s amazing,” Flora said, bouncing on her heels. “Mom’s OK! I can’t believe it, Auntie Lee. I’m going to make dinner! That lentil soup from Bon Appétit? Grammy will be very excited.”
Lee watched Flora. Sixteen years old and already carrying the weight of cooking, keeping the household running, trying so hard to be perfect and helpful that it made Lee want to shake her, grip her shoulders and say something, give Flora a shining pearl of wisdom that would free her from the lonely life she was assembling for herself: a life of never knowing who she actually was and what she, Flora, even wanted.
The silencing of her heart, replacing her own desires with an overdeveloped ability to win others’ approval. Lee wanted to cry, Don’t be like me!
But her job here was done.
“Yum, lentil soup,” said Lee.